


Intimacy sticks like honey

by Mishka10



Category: Charité | Charité at War (TV)
Genre: Boys Kissing, M/M, Martin's POV, References to War, martin's prosthetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27736795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mishka10/pseuds/Mishka10
Summary: "And gods only know if there is one thing he feared then more than vulnerability, it was intimacy.Intimacy that worms it’s way in where it doesn’t belong. Sticking to the ribs, clawing its way up one’s throat and choking off your breath."Martin reflects on the war, life, and the loss of his leg.
Relationships: Otto Marquardt/Martin Schelling
Kudos: 17





	Intimacy sticks like honey

There are times, when tending to those who were less lucky, Martin can’t help but think that the loss of one leg seems like a small price to pay to be free of the front.

He finds he almost has an odd gratefulness towards it. Towards the loss.

Grateful it likely saved his life. Grateful its loss permitted him to stay, to remain free from the worst of the war. From the true horrors he had seen. Instead, it permits him to live and work, in relative safety. Relative freedom.

What more could one hope for, when everything is relative while the entire country is at war.

But there are times when there is no doubt that it is a cost.

When the stump aches. When it itches, the scarred skin drawn tight. It is rough, yet somehow still so sensitive. So delicate and pained.

Sometimes he almost swears, he can still feel the rest of it, feel the tense muscles, toes curled in, held tight. Feel a pain in the foot he has no way to relieve. An inch he can never scratch, no matter how he may try.

Sometimes the prosthetic clicks as he walks. Sometimes it is stiff. Difficult. Refusing to move as it should, throwing off his gait, leaving him feeling lopsided and weighted. Uneven and uncomfortable. Often rough leather will rub and pinch at the tender skin. Shifting uncomfortably against it, irritating the already torn and beaten flesh. Scar tissue rubbed raw once more.

Sometimes it is a struggle. To care for. To maintain.

To even put on correctly.

He can manage it now, entirely by himself. As clunky as it may be, as irritating of a struggle at times, _he can do it._

In the beginning he had needed help. Needed support, someone to assist, to show him how to hold it. How to position everything correctly, keep it in place as he did up the laces.

He had hated that. The reliance on assistance, reliance on someone being there each time. Reliance that they would help, that they knew what they were doing, that they would do it right.

Hated the source of his freedom left him so reliant on everyone else.

He hated the necessity of touch.

Foreign hands bushed carelessly against soft skin.

Hands that at the time he did not know.

He did not trust.

It had been greater, in the beginning. When he needed help to stand. To walk, to find his way on his feet once more, a steady arm kept tight on his shoulder, keeping the balance he had lost.

But in time he had got stronger. Found his own step once more. And in that time, he had learnt which hands he trusted.

Who was safe and who was not.

But then even the nice hands often came with their own baggage. The pity, the off-putting sorrow in their eyes.

So, while it is still easier done with a helping hand, he more often than not he prefers to do it alone.

Less of a bother, less of a fuss.

Less of a risk run of facing the twinkling glint of pity in a colleague’s eye, or, if he is unlucky, perhaps something worse.

The cold stare of superiority. His weakness clean on display, laid out bare before them.

It was a stare he hated. It made something boil up within him, a seething, churning rage.

An anger to mask his fear. His vulnerability.

For wasn’t that what it really was all about at it’s core.

The vulnerability.

The bareness.

Bare, stripped back exposer. 

He hated it almost as much as he feared it.

So he worked to avoid it, when he could. Avoid the new eyes that he didn’t know if he could trust just yet.

He remembers the first time Otto saw him stripped bare. How casually the man had treated it. Not that that silenced the little nudging fear in the back of his mind, pressing in, making him search bright eyes for that deep pit of pity, that twinkle of scorn.

Unsure if he could trust his own eyes when he finds neither. 

It should have calm him, the trust he saw. The casual, relaxed nature of the entire exchange. The man seeming so relaxed with him. With his condition. His position. He could just mark the man a pair of safe hands and move on.

But instead, he suddenly found vulnerable exposure is not the only thing to fear when stripped bare. 

Instead, a new feeling began to build, firm in his chest. pressing out against the ribs, heavy and painful.

An ache. At the closeness. The exposure, the _touch._

It is… intimate.

And gods only know if there is one thing he feared then more than vulnerability, it was intimacy. 

Intimacy that worms it’s way in where it doesn’t belong. Sticking to the ribs, clawing its way up one’s throat and choking off your breath.

It is sharp and sticky and _sweet_.

The intimacy was tempting. Gods so tempting. Calling, so softly, so sweetly. Sweet sugar dripping off his ribs. Making him want. Making him dream.

Of silly things he did not think he needed. Of touch and breath and _love_. Calling him in, to lose himself in bright, glittering eyes. The firm but soft touch of another’s hand.

It was tempting, and it was terrifying. Sugary sweetness unavoidably mixed with the cloying scent of death. For intimacy is dangerous. Deadly, when it is between two men. When it spills out and stains otherwise good lives.

Intimacy drips off soft fingers, soaking through the skin ever so easy.

He felt it then. In the air, tense between them. Or at least he was tense. Nervous. If Otto noticed the tension it hadn’t shown.

But he noticed it.

It made him sharp. Made him reserved and pointed and _sharp_. Sharp eyes, darting around, uncomfortable and uncertain. Part of him wanted to bite. To snap and cut and _fight_. End it before anything grows. End it before anything could happen.

But part of him wanted to sit in it. lean in and let it cover him, push the feeling on forward, let it see where it can go. If he let it grow. ~~If he encouraged it, take the risk and press back into the comfortable pressure.~~

And then Otto asked the question. Presses in where he shouldn’t. Pushes in where he shouldn’t.

The intimacy died in an instant. The energy sharp in the air killed ever so quickly with prying words. Dangerous, prying words.

Words that made him bite back. Bite back and snap with sharp teeth, shut down the space between them as quickly as he could.

He remembers that moment now, sitting heavy on the edge of the small bed, sleep still heavy in his head. Tired mind working on autopilot, a hand scrabbling half blindly for his prosthetic, not awake enough to properly look for it. A search finally proving not to be in vain, fingers finally finding firm leather, tugging it over at last.

He pauses for a moment before tugging it on. Yawns, stretches. Cracks a sore neck, listening to the light footfall in the other room, Otto already up, already preparing for the day.

He offers another tired yawn as he tugs on the leg. Adjusts it carefully, if lazily, trying to fight the edges of sleep still nudging at his brain. The bright smell of coffee managing to help wake him up if nothing else.

He is only just started on tying the laces when the footsteps change, a head poked through the doorway, the messy mop of Otto’s hair sticking out wildly, half covering the man’s eyes. Otto flashes him a bright, burning smile, a comfortable, “morning.”

He offers a tired hum in answer, a soft nod. A soft smile. Focuses on lazy fingers finishing off tying tight the knots.

Otto helps him stand. Balance, for a moment, feeling his body straighten itself, adjust and rebalance as it always does.

Finally returning the greeting with his own soft, “good morning.” A softer kiss, pressed light and gentle against the man’s lips.

Once again finding himself thinking that truly, his loss feels like a small cost for all of this.

**Author's Note:**

> \- thanks for reading -


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